


Simultaneity

by TurtleTotem



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, F/F, F/M, Infidelity, M/M, disabled charles, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 18:37:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5175215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trying to deliver roses to his girlfriend, Erik knocks on the wrong door -- but Charles is so happy to get them, how can Erik possibly tell him the truth? Love, lies and exhaustion follow as Erik tries to keep boyfriend <i>and</i> girlfriend happy and, most importantly, unaware of each other!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the ninth prompt on [this](http://turtletotem.tumblr.com/post/129875316416/stevebuqy-a-list-of-my-university-experiences) list.

For all that Erik didn’t live in this dorm building, he knew it backwards and forwards. Not only did his girlfriend live here, so did his best friend Emma, and two members of his chess club—Charles and Hank. He probably spent as much time playing chess in Charles’s room as he did hanging out in Magda’s.

Maybe that was one of the things Magda was mad about? He honestly wasn’t sure exactly why they’d fought yesterday, only that it had been explosive and she hadn’t responded to his texts since.

Still, it was Valentine’s Day. He wasn’t a dumb enough man not to get flowers for his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, not if there was any chance at all that she was still his girlfriend.

He wasn’t sure whether he would be devastated or relieved to be informed they had broken up. He loved Magda, he really did. She was gorgeous and funny and smart and they had _so_ much in common. But she was the first serious girlfriend he’d ever had and sometimes he wondered… but that was stupid. Why would he want to mess with a good thing?

Whatever. He’d bought a dozen red roses for Magda and he was going to deliver them, for good or ill. Erik took a deep breath, shuffled the armful of flowers to get a hand free, and knocked on the door.

Charles Xavier opened it.

For a moment Erik just stared in utter bewilderment. What was Charles doing in Magda’s dorm room? Did they even know each other? Was Magda’s room even wheelchair accessible? But behind Charles was Charles’s own posters, dresser, and desk, not Magda’s… Erik had gone to the wrong room. _Erik had gone to the wrong room._

Charles was staring, too, but unlike Erik he didn’t seem bewildered or dismayed. Instead, he looked like he was about to cry.

In fact, he looked like he had already _been_ crying, his cheeks blotchy and eyelashes wet. Because, Erik realized, it was Valentine’s Day, and Charles was alone, as he’d mentioned at chess club he would be, having been rather brutally dumped just days before.

“Oh, Erik,” he whispered now, reaching hesitantly for the flowers. “Are these really for me?”

How in the world was Erik supposed to say _no?_

“I didn’t even know you liked…” Charles gestured back and forth between them; clearly the missing word was “men” or possibly “me.”

_I don’t,_ Erik could not possibly say; all that came out of his mouth was a sheepish, embarrassed sort of noise, accompanied by a squirmy shrug.

Charles’s face softened even further. “Am I your first?” He held the roses up to his face, inhaling deeply, and yes, he was definitely getting teary. “Erik, this is absolutely the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Well, you should have romantic stuff,” Erik found himself saying, which he hadn’t really meant to say but had, in fact, thought—mostly in terms of Charles’s now ex-boyfriend not treating Charles like the incredible gift he was.

That’s when Charles set the roses gently on the floor, dragged Erik down by his shirtfront and kissed him.

Erik had never given a lot of thought to how it would feel to kiss a man—maybe a little thought, now and then. Maybe during chess club, a little. Anyway. He didn’t know what to expect, but he sure didn’t expect it be… well…

Completely brain-meltingly amazing.

Charles kissed like—like the velvet of rose petals, the first fizzy sip of champagne, the glorious radiant heat of a coffee mug in cold hands. Erik felt goosebumps rise on his arms, and leaned harder into the kiss, skimming his fingertips up Charles’s jawline and into his hair. Charles made a tiny, breathless sound that Erik was 100% sure counted as a deadly weapon, killing all his brain cells on contact. His hands tugged at Erik’s thighs—pulling him down into Charles’s lap in the wheelchair, Erik realized, and went along as eagerly as he could without crushing Charles. Between them they managed to roll the chair back and get the door closed without ever unlocking lips.

_Um, Magda,_ some part of Erik’s brain was whispering, but who was he kidding? It was pretty definite that he and Magda were broken up.

Meanwhile, he was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to Charles Xavier, and he couldn’t bear to take that away from either of them.

***

When Erik’s phone alarm went off, he flailed around in utter confusion for a moment before remembering he was in Charles’s dorm room, in Charles’s big bouncy disability-friendly bed. He could hear Charles moving around, and managed to make his eyes focus on the rolling figure scooting from one side of the room to the other, trying to pull a shirt over his head and bite a bagel at the same time.

“Late for chem lab,” Charles called, harried but cheerful. “There’s bagels and coffee. Sorry, I _really_ wish I could stay—”

“No, no,” Erik assured him, “I got class too, gotta get moving…”

Charles stopped his chair beside the bed and finger-combed Erik’s hair back from his forehead, looking at him as if he couldn’t believe he was real. “I’ve got a really full docket today, but—see you this evening?”

“Absolutely,” Erik said, and sat up to kiss him, just once, gentle and sweet, before Charles rolled out the door.

The roses were in a glass of water next to the bagels. Erik spared a moment to thank God that they hadn’t come with a card.

  


Outside the dorm building, Erik literally ran into Magda.

“Oh!” He stumbled back, coffee in one hand and phone in the other, and stared.

“Erik!” She looked as surprised as he was—but she was also smiling. “I’m so glad you came!”

“Um… yeah.” What was Erik supposed to be saying? _I still love you? I have a boyfriend now?_

“I’m so sorry about the other day, Erik,” Magda said, wrapping her arms around him. “I was so terrible to you. It wasn’t even about you at all, I’d just had the day from hell and then my _mother_ called wanting to know when we’re getting married and I just—I took everything out on you and it was so unfair. I tried to text you last night but I guess you’d already gone to bed.”

_In a manner of speaking._ Erik fumbled his phone out of his pocket; sure enough, he had a half-dozen texts from Magda. His eyes hadn’t been focusing well enough to notice them when he turned off the alarm.

“Then you’re not… you’re not dumping me?” Erik said.

“No, of course not! I mean,” she winced, “if you even _want_ to still be with me. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

Erik looked down into Magda’s gorgeous brown eyes. Magda, who had been beside him through so much in the last year, who got angry about the same things he did and laughed at the same things he did and put up with a lot from him, who was the perfect Jewish girlfriend his mother would have loved. “Of course I want to be with you,” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Erik,” she said, melting against him with happiness and relief. “How about we go out tonight to that kosher place you like so much? Belated Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great.” Erik felt a little melty with relief, too, everything in the world put back the way it had been two days ago. Everything perfect again.

He let Magda lead him away from the building, trying to wrestle down the sick panicky feeling deep down in his belly.

What was he going to tell Charles?

***

Not a darn thing, as it happened.

Oh, he tried to. He tracked Charles down, between classes, and tried to tell him why he wouldn’t be able to see him that evening after all.

“Oh, well if you told your friends you’d be there, of course you have to go,” Charles said, faint worry and uncertainty lurking behind his understanding smile. Erik wasn’t sure quite what Charles thought Erik had said, but frankly he wasn’t sure what he’d said himself. He couldn’t seem to really get the words out. “But maybe this afternoon—well, I’ve got a murderball scrimmage, I told you my schedule was packed and that’s partly why, but it occurred to me you could come along! It’s a very fast-paced and bloodthirsty sport so, knowing you, you might enjoy it…?”

He looked so hopeful and—and _gorgeous_ , and actually Erik wanted to watch him play murderball so badly he could drown in it.

“Yeah,” he said. “That sounds great.”

  
And that was how he ended up spending the afternoon watching Charles’s sweaty muscles gleam and flex on the borrowed basketball court, followed by a breathless giddy make-out session in the locker room, and Erik had just enough time to run back to his dorm for a shower before meeting his girlfriend for their romantic belated-Valentine’s-Day dinner.


	2. Chapter 2

Dating two people at once was exhausting, but Erik found he could manage if he combined it with necessary activities like eating (breakfast in bed with Magda!), studying (library date with Charles!) and sleeping (watching the same Game of Thrones episode with each of them and dozing through it both times!). Actually, he was startled to realize he wasn’t spending _that_ much more time with Charles now that they were dating than he had been already. Maybe Magda had had a point when she complained about his priorities.

That was okay, he’d been thinking about dropping that Speechmaking class anyway, he wasn’t learning anything he didn’t already know. Boom! Three more hours a week free, plus accompanying homework time.

“But I thought you were dating Magda,” Hank said, blinking owlishly, when Erik and Charles showed up at chess club holding hands.

“Oh!” Charles turned to Erik with wide, concerned eyes. “Yes, I meant to ask, how did she take it? You know, us. Is she very upset?”

Trust Charles to be sincerely worried about his boyfriend’s ex. Of course he assumed Erik had broken up with her before pursuing Charles, because that’s what a decent person—like Charles—would do. Erik tried not to visibly wince. “Oh, no, we’re—we’re still friends. Still in the Brotherhood together and everything.”

“Oh. Good,” Charles said, with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm.

Erik bristled. “You don’t think we should still be friends?”

“No, of course you should! That is, not everyone should, it can be toxic, but—no, I just don’t think you should be in the Brotherhood.” He chuckled, glancing up at Erik fondly as he began setting up the chessboard. “Not that I expect that to stop you.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“I know,” Charles said serenely, and to be fair, Charles had never made a secret of his opinion of the Brotherhood. Though he sympathized with their goals, the Brotherhood was a more radical group than Charles thought was wise or fair; in Erik’s opinion, it sometimes didn’t go far _enough_. He and Magda had actually met at a Brotherhood meeting when a debate over white-passing privilege got intense, and she punched Erik’s debate partner in the face.

That was one of the many ways being with Charles was different from being with Magda. Erik and Magda never argued about politics; in fact they rarely argued at all. He and Charles argued about _everything,_ especially politics—but where his rare fights with Magda were exhausting and terrible, leaving him unsure what had happened or how to fix it, arguing with Charles seemed to clear his head, heighten his senses. He had to actually defend his arguments, and got to poke holes in Charles’s in turn. And their debates never left him tense and unsure where he stood; Charles had an amazing ability to drop a subject entirely when they’d both said what they needed to say, and turn to something else with absolutely no evidence of ill will.

And then there was the sex. Maybe it was just the novelty of it, being with a man, and a man with particular challenges in the bedroom, which forced them both to really focus their attention on what they were doing—but it was spectacular. Erik didn’t allow himself to outright compare-and-contrast Charles and Magda in the bedroom, feeling that would be a new low of sleaziness, but—Charles was definitely spectacular.

He kept expecting either Charles or Magda to figure out something was up, but they didn’t seem to notice.

His friend Emma, dismayingly, did.

“How long have I known you, sugar?” she said dryly, one afternoon when Erik managed to squeeze in a late lunch with her in between economics class, chess (and “chess”) with Charles, and an anti-legislation rally with Magda and the Brotherhood later. “You’re run ragged, yet I’ve never seen you smile as much in your life as you have these last few weeks. I also left a horribly realistic rubber spider in your bed eight days ago, and I _know_ I would have heard about it if you’d found it.”

Erik glared at her in outrage. “Yeah, I would have known immediately who to send my hospital bill to.”

“So you haven’t been sleeping there, and you haven’t been sleeping with Magda, not every night,” Emma continued cheerfully. “I know because I asked her if you were thinking of moving in together and she said no, she actually appreciated having space from you sometimes.”

Erik opened his mouth, and closed it again.

“It baffled me for a while because I couldn’t think of any other girls you’d been spending any time with,” Emma said. “But then I realize how narrow-minded I was being.” She leaned closer, unbearably smug. “How _is_ chess club going these days?”

Erik spilled the whole story, knowing he was letting himself in for an eternity of Emma’s mocking, but he was so _tired._ He never had time anymore to sleep or finish his homework or do his laundry and he was terrified one of them was going to find out.

“And then Magda might actually literally kill me, and if Charles found out it would just kill _him!_ That’s how I got into this mess to start with, trying not to shatter the poor guy’s heart—I mean, how did this become my life? I’m not even gay!”

Emma frowned. “But… you are having sex with him?”

“Well… yes.”

“And you’re enjoying it?”

Erik felt his face heat up. “Considerably, if you must know.”

“Then I have news for you, sugar.”

“But I like girls!”

“You can like both,” Emma said, slowly, as if explaining something to a small child. “There’s a word for it and everything.”

Erik scraped his nails through his hair. “Maybe,” he said weakly. “Point is, I’ve got the world’s greatest juggling act going on, and I need your help.”

“Help?” Emma looked like Christmas had come early. “Oh, Erik, this is going to be the most beautiful flaming wreckage of my young life. I should really just light a match and hurry it along.”

Erik glared at her. “With friends like you, who needs enemies?”

Emma just chuckled. “Can you honestly not stand to just pick one of them?”

“Yes! No! I mean, Emma, it’s—it’s _Magda_ , right, the perfect girl, my other half. Right?”

“If you say so.”

“But Charles is, Charles is so amazing, I just want to be with him all the time, I don’t know how I ever got through the day without him, like this sunbeam from heaven--”

“But you’re not into guys,” Emma muttered. “Oh, stop, I get the idea. But sugar, this is _going to end badly._ There’s no other ending. Your only hope is to pick one, break up with the other and hope the first one never finds out.”

“I know,” Erik said miserably. “But I can’t do that.”

Emma sighed. “Ah, well. The longer it goes on, the more pyrotechnics I get to watch when it falls apart. What do you need me to do?”

“Well… Friday is me and Magda’s one-year anniversary.”

“Okay.”

“It’s also Charles’s birthday.”

Emma gave a positively evil chuckle, downing a handful of her complimentary peanuts as if it were popcorn. “Go on.”


	3. Chapter 3

The Diamond Club where Emma worked was noticeably swankier and more… adult than anyplace Erik would normally have taken a date, especially Magda, who was of a utilitarian bent in most respects. He watched her shift uncomfortably in her seat and winced, hoping maybe she would give him points for trying to be romantic.

“At least tell me Emma got you a discount,” Magda whispered as she eyed the menu.

“She doesn’t love me that much,” Erik growled. And _two_ dates here was going to cost him a pretty penny.

“I sure don’t,” Emma said cheerfully, arriving to take their order. “Happy anniversary, though! I can’t believe you’ve put up with him this long, Magda.”

“I can’t either!” Magda laughed and winked at Erik.

Erik forced a laugh, but somehow couldn’t bring himself to wink back.

  


Charles arrived half an hour later. Emma made sure he was seated as far from Magda as possible, around a corner and out of sight, and gave Erik a thumb’s-up from across the room.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Erik said, leaning over the table to kiss Magda’s cheek.

“But the food just got here!”

“Don’t wait on me, I’ll be right back.”

He felt a bit like he was naked with a target on his back as he slipped across the restaurant to Charles’s table, but seeing the way Charles’s face lit up completely made up for it.

“Well,” Erik said, leaning down to kiss him, “if it isn’t the birthday boy!”

“Well, if it isn’t my best birthday present,” Charles said, and pulled him down for another kiss, and another.

“I’m your present?” Erik teased, pulling away with some reluctance. “I guess you don’t want this, then?” He pulled a wrapped box from his jacket pocket.

“Ooh!” Charles grinned as wide as any little kid, light flashing on the metallic gold wrapping paper as Charles tore it open.

Erik, still in the process of taking his seat, choked and reached for the gift—but it was too late.

Charles turned the black velvet box in his hands, raising a playful eyebrow. “Jewelry?”

Oh no, oh no, there had to be a way to prevent what was happening--

Charles opened the box— _no!_ —and looked inside. His smile tilted, wrinkled, became an expression of bafflement and uncertain amusement. “Erik, I, ah… I know you must mean this as… a gesture of…? And I appreciate you supporting our religious differences but it’s not… really necessary and I’m… not really _that_ Christian, not this sort of Christian at any rate…”

“What?” Erik said, because what Charles was saying _almost_ made sense for a boyfriend who had just been accidentally given a Star of David necklace but also _really didn’t._

Charles held up the necklace, which was not a Star of David at all, but a cross, complete with morbid little dead-Jesus affixed to it in bronze and nickel.

Erik stared in complete bewilderment. “That’s… not… I gave you the wrong box!” _That_ much was true, at least, and the only part of this that made any sense.

“Oh!” Charles sounded relieved. “Who was this for, then?”

“My mother,” Erik said in absolute panic.

Now Charles looked confused again. “Isn’t she Jewish? Wait… I thought you said both your parents had passed away.”

_Yes, and yes, and they wrapped the wrong box at the store, why is my entire life a disaster?_ “So what?” he snarled, struggling to bottle down any further outburst because he knew full well it wasn’t Charles he was angry at.

“Erik… are you all right?”

“Actually, I think I should go back to the bathroom.” He fled before Charles could respond.

As soon as he was out of Charles’s sight, Erik took a few deep breaths and searched his jacket pocket for the _other_ wrapped package—yes, there it was, Charles’s present. Of course now he didn’t have one for Magda…

“There you are!” Magda said, and Erik realized his unthinking feet had carried him back to Magda’s table, oh _crap_. “I was getting worried about you. Oooh, is that my present? Gimme!” She pulled the box from Erik’s hands before he could protest.

And lifted out the tie Charles had laughed at in a store window, featuring Darth Vader and the words WHO’S YOUR DADDY?

“Hilarious, Erik,” said Magda, who did not wear ties and was not a Star Wars fan. She was staring at him as if unsure whether he had been replaced by a pod person.

“At least it’s not a crucifix,” Erik said weakly.

Magda crossed her arms. “Do you have a fever?”

Erik heard a tiny moan of despair leak from his throat. He gently pulled the tie out of her hands, turned around, and fled to the bathroom.

  


“Do you feel better now, Erik?” Charles asked, brow wrinkled with concern, when Erik returned to the table. He’d spent several minutes in the bathroom, breathing deeply and trying to construct plausible lies. “I ordered for you, I hope you don’t mind. I know you like pasta.”

“Oh, _food!”_ He hadn’t had a chance to eat a bite of what he’d ordered at Magda’s table. Momentarily distracted by his ravening stomach, Erik fell upon the plate of pasta with an enthusiasm that restored some of Charles’s usual good cheer to his face. “I found your present,” Erik said after he’d swallowed. “Your real present. I’m sorry it’s not wrapped.” He held out the tie.

Charles burst into delighted laughter. “You _bought_ the—When you did you buy this? Erik!” He immediately began tugging off the plain red tie he’d worn to the restaurant and replacing it with the Star Wars one.

Erik inhaled more pasta, feeling one of the many knots in his chest ease. At least _something_ had gone right tonight.

  


During the course of the evening, Erik managed to kiss the wrong girl on the cheek from behind, wish Charles a happy anniversary “uhhh, th-th-that is, of your birth,” and spill his drink in startlement when Charles texted to ask if he was all right in the bathroom. All the frustration and confusion was making him snappish, which helped matters in no way whatsoever. Twice he got back to Magda’s table to find Emma there chatting with her, probably trading complaints about Erik.

The third time, she was handing Magda a tissue.

“It’s not just tonight,” he heard Magda say. “He’s been acting weird for weeks. I don’t know. Something’s different.”

All the knots in Erik’s chest came back, tighter than ever, and his foul mood dissolved in a wave of unbearable sadness.

“Sometimes relationships change, sugar,” Emma said softly, looking more genuinely empathetic than Erik thought he’d ever seen her. “Not everyone’s meant to be together forever.” She caught sight of Erik over Magda’s shoulder and shot him a glare—as if she weren’t just as much a part of this crazy plan!

“Magda, I’m so sorry,” Erik murmured, squeezing her hand as he came around the table and nudged Emma out of his seat. “I really don’t feel well today.”

“Well,” Magda said briskly, hiding the tissue in her lap, “I have to leave for work in fifteen minutes. Are you still okay to drive me?”

“Uhhh…” He’d been grateful that Magda had to work a late shift after dinner, sparing him the choice of which significant other to go home with. He’d completely forgotten he was supposed to drive her to work. That would take more time than he could possibly excuse with a bathroom visit.

“My shift’s over by then,” Emma said, squeezing Erik’s shoulder. “I can take you, Mags. No trouble at all.”

Magda’s face softened. “Thanks, Em. You’ve been a lifesaver tonight already.”

“Yeah,” Erik said. “She really has.”

Emma flicked his ear, rather painfully, as she walked off. “Thanks for making me a part of your special night, Erik.”

  


Back at Charles’s dorm room, with the catastrophic dinner finally over, Erik collapsed on the bed with a groan of relief.

“Are you sure you’re feeling better?” Charles said, parking by the bed and leaning over to comb his hair back from his forehead.

“Definitely. No more bathroom trips tonight.” Erik managed a wicked smile, walking his fingers suggestively up Charles’s arm.

But Charles just pushed him gently back down on his back. “Don’t be silly, Erik, I don’t expect any kind of… calisthenics from you tonight. Just rest, I’ll get you some ginger tea, it’ll help settle your stomach. Here, get comfortable.” He pulled his favorite, softest throw-blanket from the foot of the bed up over Erik’s body.

Erik felt appallingly close to tears. “I don’t deserve you.”

Charles’s mouth tipped up, obviously about to make a witty retort, but then his eyes softened. Stroking Erik’s hair again, he bent to kiss his lips tenderly and say, “Yes, you do.”

_I really don’t,_ Erik thought. _But I think… I think I want to._

  


They spent the rest of the evening snuggled together in bed, half-watching a few episodes of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries but mostly just talking. Eventually, they turned out the lights, and Erik was almost asleep when he heard Charles’s hesitant voice in the darkness.

“Erik?”

“Mm?”

“That necklace for your mother… I _know_ you told me both your parents had passed away.”

Erik sighed. “They did.” He hated the way Charles’s arms tightened around him, the silent assumption he could hear Charles making—that Erik was still buying presents for his dead mother. He was _really tired_ of lying to Charles.

“How old were you?” Charles asked.

“Ten.” The words kept coming, there in the warm safe darkness with Charles’s arms around him, and before Erik knew it he was telling the entire story—the neo-Nazi who had tried to kidnap Erik from his bed, and shot his mother and father when they woke and intervened. “My Aunt Ruth wasn’t the most maternal person in the world,” he said, “but she took me in, and she had the sense to get me into therapy. For a good long time, as it happens.”

“Thank God for that, at least,” Charles whispered. “Oh, Erik, I’m so sorry.”

“He’s dead now, Shaw—the man who killed them. Died in prison. Me and Aunt Ruth threw a party.”

“Can’t say I blame you.” Charles pressed a soft kiss to Erik’s forehead. “I know this can’t be easy to talk about.”

“I never talk about it,” Erik said, hearing his own surprise at himself in his voice. “I’ve never told anyone the full story, not even… no one at all.” Not even Magda.

“I’m glad you told me.”

“...I’m glad I told you, too.”

They were silent after that, and eventually Charles fell asleep, breathing soft and even in his arms.

Erik remained awake, staring into the darkness. He’d never been able to open up to Magda the way he just had to Charles. He’d never felt the kind of comfort he felt right now, knowing Charles knew this about him and hadn’t flinched, hadn’t drawn away. It was nothing Magda had done wrong. She just wasn’t Charles.

And Erik had always known, deep down, that he would have to make a choice.


	4. Chapter 4

Magda looked nervous when she let Erik into her dorm room. As well she might; all he’d said over the phone was that they needed to talk, and how often did that kind of thing end well?

They sat down on the bed, Erik rubbing clammy palms down his jeans, Magda fiddling with her hair. Erik had rehearsed this a dozen different ways; the one that finally started coming out of his mouth wasn’t necessarily the one he intended, but he guessed it would have to do.

“So, we both know things have been… not quite the same… with us,” he managed. “Different. And college is… different, people do different things, it’s like…” _It’s like I’m an incoherent mess. Pull it together, Lehnsherr._ “College is the time to figure things out, right? About yourself. Try different things. And sometimes you find out that you’re not what you thought. Like, sexuality is fluid, right? You find surprises and sometimes there’s accidents that were maybe on purpose after all and maybe it’s not anyone’s fault--” No, that sounded like he was trying to escape blame. “What I mean is it’s not _your_ fault--”

Magda’s eyes had gone round. “D-did you talk to Emma?”

“What? No.” What did Emma have to do with this?

Magda’s cheeks were turning red, which he didn’t think he’d ever seen before. “It really was a surprise. And I know we shouldn’t have… you know… when I’m still technically dating _you_ , but I guess that’s… what this is, right? The end of things.” She sounded as much relieved as sad, which hurt a little, but after all, Erik was relieved too.

And confused. “Wait… Emma? You and _Emma?”_

Magda frowned. “Isn’t that what you meant, about fluid sexuality…?”

“Something like that,” Erik said faintly.

“I’m just so glad you understand.” Magda took his hand. “I didn’t want to hurt you, and I mean, everything about us makes so much sense, like, on paper… but I’ve felt for a while that maybe that wasn’t translating to real life somehow, and maybe now I know why?”

“I…” Erik felt something like a laugh bubble up his throat. “I think I know exactly what you mean.”

  


Erik still felt a little dazed when he ran into Charles on the sidewalk outside the dorm building.

“Erik!” The way Charles’s face lit up felt like the one true, certain thing in the world, and Erik thought he might cry. “I thought you couldn’t come today?”

“Things, um, suddenly freed up.” Erik knew his smile was almost painfully wide, but he couldn’t seem to dial it down.

Charles looked at him closely, a sort of wonder growing in his expression, brightening his eyes. “You chose me,” he said softly.

“W-what?”

“I know there’s been… something.” Charles reached for his hand, lacing their fingers. He sounded a little sheepish. “I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know, I wanted to just… keep you as long as I could.”

Chest aching with a million indecipherable emotions, Erik knelt next to his chair and tugged him down into a softer, sweeter kiss than he thought he’d ever given anyone. “You can keep me as long as you want. I’m all yours.”

“Good,” Charles whispered, kissing him again. “Now come on, we’re going to be late for chess club.”


End file.
